Over the course of San Bernardino County’s four-year legal battle with Colonies Partners, county officials say the company’s settlement demands escalated from an initial $25 million to a combination of cash and land that included a parcel potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

San Bernardino County has terminated its financial relationship with the Inland Empire Economic Recovery Corp., an entity the county government subsidized during the worst of the recession to rehabilitate foreclosed homes.

UPLAND – As residents begin to decide which of the 11 candidates running for City Council will get their vote, they may also be thinking of the actions that led to the election being held in the first place.

San Bernardino County doled out $102 million to a Rancho Cucamonga developer to settle a land-rights lawsuit based on inflated damage estimates by the developer with no documentation to justify the figures, according to Grand Jury witness testimony.

We humans tend to crave predictability and fear uncertainty, if for no other reason than the former implies security and the latter insecurity, which largely explains why those in and around California politics despise legislative term limits.

SAN DIEGO – A public corruption case in San Bernardino County is becoming increasingly intertwined with a related lawsuit, and some lawyers in the civil case accused the county counsel’s office of cooperating with one of the felony defendants.

A judge will continue to review a request to delay the San Bernardino County Flood Control District’s lawsuit against three public agencies seeking to recoup part of a $102 million settlement at the center of bribery allegations.

In a summer in which the San Bernardino City Unified School District laid off teachers and negotiated pay cuts for other employees, the school board gave two veteran administrators thousands of dollars in new retirement benefits out of fear they would retire — even though board members said the pair never announced plans to do so.

Brand-new congressional district boundaries sent a shock through the High Desert on Friday as longtime congressmen Jerry Lewis and Howard “Buck” McKeon were “re-districted” out of the Victor Valley, setting the stage for local politicians to jockey for the open congressional seat.

Washignton– California gets $79 billion a year from the federal government – nearly 40 percent of what it spends. The money goes to everything from highways to universities. So when the federal government sneezes, California catches a cold.

San Bernardino County should be able to proceed with its attempt to share the burden of a $102 million legal settlement without waiting for a related criminal case to be resolved, a judge said Thursday.

Democrats would outnumber Republicans by at least five percentage points in 51 Assembly, 26 Senate and 36 congressional districts in final draft remaps to be voted on today by the state’s redistricting panel.

The Colton school district has hired back 43 of the 57 teachers it laid off in May as it prepares for the opening of the new school year next week.

A nurse and 21 secondary school teachers were re-hired this week, Colton Joint Unified School District spokeswoman Katie Orloff said, joining 22 elementary school teachers rehired over the last two weeks.

Jim Erwin, the one-time sheriff’s deputy who rose in the tumultuous world of San Bernardino County politics to be a union boss, developer’s consultant, political operative and supervisor’s chief of staff, saw himself as “a consummate insider,” former Supervisor Bill Postmus testified to a grand jury this spring.

A judge is expected to make a final ruling today on whether to delay San Bernardino County Flood Control District’s effort to recoup $102 million connected to a legal settlement tainted by bribery allegations.

District Attorney Michael A. Ramos on Thursday again called on San Bernardino County leaders to set limits on campaign contributions to thwart political corruption that has plagued the county for at least 20 years.

VICTORVILLE • In his State of the County address to the Victorville Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt will discuss county issues including transportation, education, economic development and the Countywide Vision.

Tired of presidential candidates treating California like an ATM, raising vast sums of money here but spending it in states where campaigns cost less and matter more, state officials four years ago agreed to hold the 2008 primary in February.

InlandPolitics.com has learned that a study performed to evaluate the viability of the San Bernardino International Airport was actually commissioned and paid for by the facility’s governing authority.

Officials with the San Bernardino International Airport Authority spent nearly three hours Wednesday dismissing what they called errors in a civil grand jury report. Officials defended the price paid for used aviation equipment and refuted claims that the airport developer’s federal ban from aviation would affect airport operations.

Allegations of judicial misconduct against two San Bernardino Superior Court judges contributed to county attorneys’ refusal to settle a land- rights lawsuit with Rancho Cucamonga developer Colonies Partners LP for $102 million, according to Grand Jury testimony.

BARSTOW – A proposed $160 million casino will alleviate high unemployment, a high rate of welfare and high poverty level, Mayor Joe Gomez said Wednesday night at a public hearing hosted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

GRAND TERRACE – Calling the Redevelopment Agency a vital revenue source, City Council members have agreed to pay the state more than $2.8 million in what they consider “extortion payments” to keep access to the agency and also hired a consultant to appeal the payment amount.

Upland’s dividing line Some would be moved into Baca’s district Sandra Emerson, Staff Writer Created: 07/27/2011 07:52:08 PM PDT

UPLAND – Residents in the 1400 block of Ukiah Way and Victoria Avenue may soon find themselves divided along party lines.

The block running north and south between 14th Street and 15th Street will join citizens living below 14th Street in the district of Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino, according to a preliminary draft of Congressional, Assembly and state Senate districts released last week by the Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Lawyers who thought San Bernardino County supervisors were making a mistake in settling with Colonies Partners over a flood control easement had few options other than the vigorous opposition they expressed in meetings, letters and memos to officials, legal experts said.

As president of the San Bernardino County Safety Employees Benefit Association, Jim Erwin used the union’s political action committee to bolster his clout and launder campaign contributions from a powerful Rancho Cucamonga developer, according to Grand Jury testimony.

‘AA’ ?

WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) – The United States will lose its top-notch AAA credit rating from at least one major rating agency, according to a Reuters poll that also found wrangling over the debt ceiling has already damaged the economy.

When Colonies Partners first sued San Bernardino County in 2002 over flood-control improvements on its Upland development, they faced a Board of Supervisors unwilling to settle the dispute, recently released grand jury transcripts show.

The San Bernardino police and fire unions contributed $32,763 in cash and services to Robert Jenkins in the final weeks of the City Council Ward 2 campaign, an election that Jenkins won with almost twice as many votes as his nearest challenger.

An independent California commission has set the stage for what could be the largest shake-up of the state’s political system in decades – and potentially give Democrats a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Legislature.

California’s evolution into one of the planet’s most economically, culturally and ethnically diverse societies sparks ceaseless political debate, touching everything from illegal immigration to the plight of public education.

Capitol Alert The latest on California politics and government July 25, 2011

Gov. Jerry Brown signed several dozen bills into law this afternoon, including a measure to allow college students who are undocumented immigrants to qualify for scholarships funded with private donations.

California will borrow $5 billion today through a temporary loan as U.S. states make plans to cope with any credit-market disruption should lawmakers fail to raise the federal debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline.

Overseers of 10 public pension funds with combined assets topping $1 trillion joined a call for a deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling, warning that a failure by leaders in Washington would have “devastating” consequences.

Motorists will likely find little relief at the gasoline pump in the coming weeks. Prices are rising again after consumers experienced only modest decreases in costs in May and June. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline is far above levels seen last summer, and the gap may not decrease anytime soon.

SAN BERNARDINO – Efforts to transform the former Norton Air Force Base into a civilian airport and bring businesses to the surrounding area could reverse the devastating economic impact of the base’s closure on the region, according to a new report.

Despite objections from San Bernardino County attorneys, Rancho Cucamonga developer Jeff Burum and two county supervisors negotiated who would mediate a legal settlement over a land rights dispute that netted the developer $102 million, according to Grand Jury testimony.

Nearly 60% of those polled support changing state law to allow voters to approve local taxes on cigarettes, sugary drinks, liquor and oil pumped from the ground.

By Shane Goldmacher, Los Angeles Times July 25, 2011

Reporting from Sacramento— Californians would let local officials put new taxes on cigarettes, sugary drinks, liquor and oil pumped from the ground if voters in their communities said it was OK, a new poll shows.

The top Democrat in the state Senate said he is shelving until 2012 one of the year’s most explosive legislative gambits: a proposed law to grant cities, counties and more than 1,000 school districts broad new taxing authority.

A local ballot measure in San Jose and a statewide initiative, both only proposals at this point, would attempt to cut the cost of public pensions promised current workers, believed by many to be “vested rights” protected by court decisions.